Turnitin Integrates e-rater Grammar Checking Tool

GradeMark is part of Turnitin, iParadigm's paperless suite for evaluating written work. Turnitin also includes OriginalityCheck, designed to detect plagiarism, and PeerMark, which allows anonymous and collaborative peer review.

The addition of e-rater provides information on grammar, usage, mechanics, style, and spelling in student papers, and allows instructors to expand, edit, or remove individual marks, and expand or hide entire categories. Students can also use e-rater prior to turning in assignments to identify and make necessary changes. Features of the e-rater scoring engine include:

Content analysis based on vocabulary measures;

Lexical complexity and diction;

Proportion of grammatical errors;

Proportion of usage errors;

Proportion of mechanics errors;

Proportion of style comments;

Organization and development scores; and

Features rewarding idiomatic phraseology.

GradeMark is designed to automatically provide feedback on student writing, "allowing instructors to focus on substantive content while saving them time spent marking papers," according to information released by the company.

Other GradeMark features include:

Standard and custom marks;

Performance tracking;

Custom rubrics; and

Comprehensive reports from GradeMark, OriginalityCheck, and PeerMark.

"GradeMark and the e-rater tool have already become the standard I use to mark papers," said Heather Schulman, an English instructor at Anderson High School in Austin, TX and a beta-user of the program. "The service allows me to respond to students' writing and ideas rather than just correcting their grammar."

More information about Turnitin and GradeMark is available at turnitin.com. Visit ets.org for more information on e-rater.

About the Author

Joshua Bolkan is the multimedia editor for Campus Technology and THE Journal. He can be reached at jbolkan@1105media.com.

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